That is great you don't believe that obeying the Law of Moses is for salvation. I don't believe that, either. For the Law of Moses is no longer in effect.
Here are a list of verses showing us the Old Law is no more:
While we do not earn our salvation by our obedience to the Mosaic Law, that does not mean that our salvation does not require obedience to it for some other reason, such as faith. In Romans 2:13, only doers of the Mosaic Law will be justified. In Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so the Mosaic Law is God's instructions for how to know Christ, and knowing Christ is required for salvation, while arguing that it is no more is leading people away from knowing Christ and away from salvation. Our salvation is from sin and sin is the transgression of the Mosaic Law (1 John 3:4), so arguing that it is no more is essentially saying that we have no more need of salvation. The Mosaic Law is God's instructions for how to testify about God's nature, so the only way abolish the Mosaic Law would be to first abolish God. In Matthew 5:17, Jesus specifically said that he came not to abolish the law and warned against relaxing the least part of it or teaching others to do that, so saying that it is no more is calling Jesus a liar and disregarding his warning. In Matthew 4:17-23, Jesus began his ministry with the Gospel message to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand, and the Mosaic Law was how his audience knew what sin is, and in Titus 2:14, Jesus gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so saying the the Mosaic Law is no more undermines what Christ accomplished both through his ministry and through the cross.
"When God speaks of a "new" covenant, it means he has made the first one obsolete. It is now out of date and will soon disappear." (Hebrews 8:13) (NLT).
In Hebrews 8:10, the New Covenant still involves following the Mosaic Law, so while the Mosaic Covenant has become obsolete, God and His eternal law did not become obsolete along with it.
”Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.” (Romans 7:4).
In Romans 7:1-4, a woman is bound by the law of marriage that would cause her to commit adultery if she were to live with another man while her husband was still alive, but if he were to die, then she would be released from the law of marriage and would be free to marry another man without committing adultery, whereupon she would once again be bound by the law of marriage. At no point was she ever set free from needing to obey God's law, so nothing in Paul's example from the law leads to the conclusion that in the same way God's law is no more.
"But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." (Romans 7:6).
In Romans 7:22-23, Paul said that he delighted in obeying God's law, but contrasted it with the law of which, which held him captive. If Romans 7:5-6 were referring to God's law, then that would mean that Paul delighted in stirring up sinful passions in order to bear fruit unto death and that he delighted in being held captive, which is absurd, but rather it is the law of sin that he described as holding him captive.
"Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;" (Colossians 2:14).
1.) You shall not commit murder.
2.) This person has been found guilty of murder.
The first is an example of a law that is for our own good while the second is an example of a handwritten ordinance that was contrary to someone that was nailed to their cross in order to announce why they were being excused. The cross serves as a perfect analogy for the list of our violations of God's law being nailed to Christ's cross and with him dying in our place to pay the penalty for our sins, but has nothing to do with ending any laws.
“By abolishing in His [own crucified] flesh the enmity [caused by] the Law with its decrees and ordinances [which He annulled]; that He from the two might create in Himself one new man [one new quality of humanity out of the two], so making peace.” (Ephesians 2:15) (AMPC).
All of God's righteous laws are eternal (Psalms 119:160), but these verses are speaking about a law that is ending, therefore this verse is not speaking about any of God's laws. God did not make any mistakes when He gave His law, so He had no need to send Jesus to abolish His own laws. Furthermore, God did not give any laws for the purpose of creating a dividing wall of hostility, but rather His law instructs us to love our neighbor as ourselves. The Greek word "dogma" that is translated as "ordinances" or "decrees" in Colossians 2:14 and Ephesians 2:15 is never used by the Bible to refer to the Mosaic Law
In Deuteronomy 13:4-5, the way that God instructed His people to determine that someone was a false prophet who was not speaking for Him was if they taught against obeying the Mosaic Law, so God simply did not give any room to follow anyone who does that, and if you think that is what the author of Hebrews was doing, then according to God, you should regard them as being a false prophet, but that is not what they were doing. The bottom line is that we must obey God rather than man, so we should be quicker to disregard everything that any man has said than to disregard anything that God has commanded.
50 “Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.
51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; “ (Matthew 27:20-51).
There is nothing in the Bible that states that this was done in order to abolish God's eternal law.
“And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.” (Acts of the Apostles 15:1).
“But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses.” (Acts of the Apostles 15:5).
The reason why God commanded circumcision was not in order to provide a means of earning our salvation, so the Jerusalem Council upheld the Mosaic Law by correctly ruling against that requirement. In Acts 15:1, the unbelievers were from Judea, they were opposed in Acts 15 by believers from the Pharisees who argued that Gentiles should become circumcision and be required to obey the Mosaic Law as a matter of faith, and the Jerusalem Council ruled in favor of the Pharisees. No one there was taking the position that Gentiles didn't need to obey the Mosaic Law.
“Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law: to whom we gave no such commandment” (Acts of the Apostles 15:24).
28 "For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things;
29 That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well." (Acts of the Apostles 15:28-29).
Not only was it unreasonable to require obedience to the Mosaic Law to earn salvation, but it was also unreasonable to expect new believers to understand and apply all of God's laws on day one. All of God's works are known to Him from eternity, but Gentiles are still learning them, so James was softening the position taken in verse 5. The four laws listed in Acts 15:19-21 are all from the Mosaic Law, so again, no one was arguing against Gentiles obeying it, but rather James was saying that they needed to first focus their priority on refraining from pagan idolatry, and then continue to learn how to obey Moses by hearing him taught every Sabbath in the synagogues, which was in support of the position in verse 5. Those four laws are clearly not an exhaustive list of everything that a mature Gentile believer is required to do.
7 "But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:
8 How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?
9 For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
10 For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.
11 For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious." (2 Corinthians 3:7-11).
The fact that the law is a ministry of death for those who refuse to submit to it is not a very good reason to refuse to submit to it. The Spirit has the role of leading us to obey the Mosaic Law (Ezekiel 36:26-27).
“But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.” (2 Corinthians 3:14).
The goal of the Mosaic Law is to testify about how to have a relationship with Christ and this is what the veil was preventing Jews from seeing (Romans 9:30-10:4). However, it is a veil that works both ways by preventing Gentiles from seeing the same thing.
The Old Covenant says this about circumcision:
"And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant." (Genesis 17:14).
Yet, the New Covenant says this about circumcision:
"Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing." (Galatians 5:2).
Either there are right and wrong reasons for choosing to become circumcised, or according to Galatians 5:2, Paul caused Christ to be of no value to Timothy when he had him circumcised, and Christ is of no value to roughly 80% of the men in the US. As I pointed out previously, the problem was that circumcision was being used for a purpose which God did not command.
The Old Covenant says this about the Sabbath:
32 "And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day.
33 And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation.
34 And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him.
35 And the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.
36 And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses." (Numbers 15:32-36).
Yet, the New Covenant says this about the Sabbath:
"Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:" (Colossians 2:16).
So it appears things have changed.
In Colossians 2:16-23, Paul described the people who were judging them as teaching human traditions and precepts, self-made religion, asceticism, and severity to the body, so they were being judged by pagans. This means that the Colossians were keeping God's holy days in obedience to His commands in accordance with the example that Christ set for us to follow and Paul was encouraging them not to let any man judge them and keep them from obeying God.
This makes sense because Hebrews 7:12 says the Law has changed.
"For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law." (Hebrews 7:12).
In Deuteronomy 4:2, it is a sin to add to or subtract from the Mosaic Law, so it is a sin to say that it has changed. If laws for how to testify about God's nature were to change when the New Covenant was made, then God's nature wouldn't be eternal, but it is eternal, therefore Hebrews 7:12 is not speaking about a change of the law in regard to its content, such as with it becoming righteous to commit idolatry and sinful to help the poor, but rather in context it is speaking about a change of the priesthood, so it is speaking about a change of the law in regard to its administration.
“For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” (John 1:17).
There is no "but" in the Greek in verse 17. In verse 16, it says grace upon grace, so verse 17 is describing one example of grace being added upon another.
While we are under the New Covenant and not the Mosaic Covenant, we are nevertheless still under the same God with the same nature and therefore the same laws for how to testify about His nature. Jesus set a sinless example for us to follow of how to walk in obedience to the Mosaic Law, he did not hypocritically preach something other than what he practiced, and he did not establish the New Covenant in order to undermine anything that he spent his ministry teaching, but rather the New Covenant still involves following the Mosaic Law (Jeremiah 31:33).
